Saturday, 27 April 2013

Another interest out of the closet so to speak! Yes, I collect stamps. Much more vigorously a few years ago, but yes, call my philatelist! (really Thematics) I started when I was a kid with packets and clubs that Mum and Dad signed us up to. My brother prefered cars and sports; but I loved animals, and anything that was a little quirky. Later on, in my working years (when I had money in the late 1980's) I used to buy horse, camellia and shark stamps from a lady in Canada via snail mail. She would send me colour page catalogues of what she had gotten a hold of and I'd order from that. Wow. See we did cope before the internet!

I just LOVED the photo of inspiration at Orange Papiere.

Orange Papiere inspiration - also needed to include stamping and punching

The difficult bit was making it look like I'd punched something (the hearts really didn't work how I thought they were going to) and I was stumped totally on the 'stamping' component as this clean-line layout just wasn't going to cope with a smudgey looking stamp. So I made my title 'stamping'. Yeah, I know, a bit sad really. I really must find out how to do that cut out look with Fireworks. I can do it no problem in Photoshop.

I really LOVED this palette but trying to get time and the brain power was really difficult. I churned out a few pages this week for other comps trying a host of new techniques, but returned to digi layout (perhaps hybrid - must look up that and find out what that is). I think I could make loads of pages with this palette because I really do like this colours together.

Had to settle for one page though (now just need to make one card as well, which will probably double as my mothers day card.

Thursday, 25 April 2013

This is my entry for April challenge 'Inspired by" at Scrap Art Studio. I think this is my best page to date there (I've done three pages now). It's almost how I wanted it. It needs something a bit more somehow. I battled with my artistic side of my brain and the thinking side for some time. Losing layers or losing arty components. It was a struggle, but I was so inspired by the cool example pic I really wanted to end up with a page for it. Had to use 50% of SAS material. This is getting easier and easier now that I am a little more familiar with what I bought from there.

I also finally got this idea out. I've had these photos for ages, and started a similar page over 12 months ago, but it never came to anything. I just couldn't get it how I wanted to IRL. This is pretty close.

Monday, 15 April 2013

I was inspired by ArchiScraps April 2013 #10 comp to do this page. I often think life is scary enough in itself without having to go to horror movies or celebrate halloween, which is probably why I avoid them like the plague.

I loved the spooky house, so I drew over it (by mouse) using Adobe Fireworks and captured the general shapes and then coloured them. I wanted it to be quite crude, because it made it look more tumbledown and spooky that way. The bats are also by mouse and the best I could do! I've never drawn them before!

I felt really low around Easter without my Nan there, so I suspect that's why this page is so dark and foreboding!

Sunday, 14 April 2013

My page is about a pet - but I went for the humorous story option. It was really hard for me to capture this moment in a page.

I've been in such a good mood the last two days its truly affected my page, which was a bit of a disaster before (some may think it still is!). I was inspired by the tiled floor (which reminded me of my hairdresser Cheryl who I've only had for about 12 months now. She works out of her home. There's never a dull moment with Cheryl. This was one of my hairdressing appointments. I did (eventually) get my hair cut.
I liked the pocket idea but couldn't think of anything to put in there so I put myself in the pocket.

Some have commented that it looks like Alice in Wonderland theme - it was totally unintentional, but I agree - it does look like that!

The Canary Catcher 2013 CSI #66

Text around bird says : “I was at the Hairdressers; one lady ahead of me getting her hair styled, when there was an almightly CRASH outside the house. My Hairdresser, Cheryl, looked up, shouted out “OH MY GOD THE CANARY”and took off out the back with scissors in hand. She shouted at myself and the other lady to help, in full panic, she chased off the shocked cat, then we cornered the bird, doused it in water, wrapped it up in a towel, put its cage back together and put it back inside. Cheryl was having a melt down as the bird was being minded by her whilst her friend was away. I said in the future she would laugh about this – she didn’t believe me – but now she tells the story with great gusto and calls me The Canary Catcher.”
(The Scheme – yes, Testimony : “Anatomy of…”, Something Funny, Evidence : buttons, arrows/hearts, flair, plaid/checks, pocket (that’s what I’m in), pet accent (bird))

My hairdresser Cheryl's old doggie passed away last week. He was 17 years old. A King Charles Spaniel cross (walking carpet variety). Over the past few years Cheryl has been giving Sammy water by the spoonfuls and hand feeding every morsel because he was a little deaf and quite blind. I thought about all I knew about Cheryl and Sammy to produce the card below. Cheryl is a die in the wool Collingwood supporter, she loves her roses, but I also wanted something that looked like a traditional Sympathy card, and of course, something to show it was for a dog and not for people card. Front cover and inside. I then printed these out and stuck them with double sided tape to a black card and posted it off to her.

I like the added freedom Digi Scrapping gives me. Particularly in regard to colours. I don't have to burrow about in my stash looking for just the right colours or shade of a colour. Using an editing program I can change any patterned paper or embellishment into whatever colour I choose, even though white is always a little challenging and still occasionally impossible!

The next best bit is scaleability. I can scale any object as large or as small as I like. It's one of my pet hates in the IRL scrapbooking that flowers are often a certain size and rarely teeny weeny, so usually the size of the flowers you have determines the scale on the page. Of course, with any flat embellishment you can scan it into your computer, scale it up, and re-print it, but this is time consuming.

And I love the ability to shift things around, change things at the last minute, or scale everything just a bit smaller or larger to get exactly what I was looking for. Can't do that once the IRL page is stuck down (well, I can, but I have to be really creative and if anyone could see it IRL they would see I've made some kind of error there and tried to cover it up! I can even come back into a page and make drastic changes - like change the whole page from blues to oranges!

Competition palettes are also easy to match. I simply put the palette in as a layer and then select the colours off it, or move my object next to the palette colour it is to match until I have just the right shade!

I also enjoy working with layers, though perhaps this is more so because I've scrapped IRL for so long. Technically its all about layers - what is on top, and what is underneath, and the mix inbetween.

Sometimes layouts are heavily complicated in the layers - I can have 100 or so layers in play. Other times, there may be only 30 or less layers. Time is a factor, but really its what I want to produce on the page and how intricate I want it to look. I have attached some of my digi pages and how many layers were in play to create them. For each drop shadow is a separate layer (in most applications) and that adds to the complexity.

The number of layers means more brain management to make sure no one layer disappears from view or interacts in a way that I don't want it to. It doesn't necessarily mean that I've spent more time on that layout. I can spend just as much time getting the effect I want in the filters or overall look to the page and layout. Just like scrapping IRL sometimes its a breeze and everything runs smoothly, other times its hell to get the page to where I want it.

I also like how I can export out from the original file any size (mb) I want and this file will be the one I upload online. My original workings file stays in place until I decide to delete it.

There are lots of programs out there where you just pop your photo into a hole and the smashing page looks amazing around it. I'm a purist - I don't use any of these. Every page I make up from scratch using items from digi kits or my own photographs. Having pre-made templates is good if you've got lots of photos from one event (like a wedding) and just want to put them in and get something printed out, but I enjoy working from scratch and having full control over the layout.

There are some things I don't like about digi scrapping, but the points above probably mean that I won't give it away any time soon.

Friday, 12 April 2013

I found a new Digi community pretty much by chance - someone at CSI used a kit from there, so I followed the breadcrumbs back to it and it's not as complicated as some of the others and I think I may be able to give it a go.

I really like their challenges. This is my first page for Scrap Art Studio. They gave you the bits you had to use and then you could do what you like with that.